Ranching for Sylvia eBook

“I feel inclined to wonder where they all go
to and how you employ them. Your people still
seem anxious to bring them in.”

“Yes,” she replied thoughtfully, “It’s
rather a difficult question. Of course, we pay
high wages—­people who say they must dispense
with help and can’t carry out useful projects
would like to see them lower—­but there’s
the long winter when, out West at least, very few men
can work. Then what the others have earned in
summer rapidly melts.”

“But what do the Canadian farm-hands and mechanics
think? It wouldn’t suit them to have wages
broken down.”

West had come up a few moments earlier.

“It doesn’t matter,” he laughed;
“they won’t be consulted. It’s
the other people who pull the strings, and they’re
adopting a forward policy—­rush them all
in; it’s their lookout when they get here.
That’s my opinion; though I’ll own that
I know remarkably little about western Canada.”

“You won’t admit he’s right,”
George said to the girl.

She looked grave.

“Sometimes,” she answered, “I wonder.”

Then she turned to West.

“You don’t seem impressed with the country,”
she said.

“As a rule, I try to be truthful. The
country strikes me as being pretty mixed, full of
contrasts. There’s this place, for instance;
one could imagine they had meant to build a Greek
temple, and now it looks more like a swimming-bath.
After planning the rest magnificently, why couldn’t
they put on a roof that wouldn’t leak?”

“It has been an exceptionally heavy rain,”
the girl reminded him.

“Just so. But couldn’t somebody
get a broom and sweep the water out? Our unimaginative
English folk could rise as far as that.”

She laughed good-humoredly, and her father sauntered
up to them.

“Any news of the train yet?” he asked.

“No, sir,” said Edgar. “In
my opinion, any attempt to extract reliable information
from a Canadian railroad-hand is a waste of time.
No doubt, it’s so scarce that it hurts them
to part with it.”

The Westerner looked at him with a little hard smile.
He was tall and gaunt and dressed in baggy clothes,
but there was a hint of power in his face, which was
lined, and deeply bronzed by exposure to the weather.

“Well,” he retorted, “what do you
expect, Percy, if you talk to them like that?
But I want to thank you and your partner for taking
care of my girl when she went to see the wreck.
Fellow on the cars told me—­said you were
a gritty pup!”

Edgar looked confused, but the man drew an old skin
bag out of his pocket.

“It’s domestic leaf; take a smoke.”

“No, thanks,” said Edgar quickly.
“I’ve no doubt it’s excellent, but
I really prefer the common Virginia stuff.”